What bothers me personally about this article is that Belasco says things like, "Are there any plants that are, right now, O.K.? Sure. The TVA said their plants were." Two things to note: 1)"TVA said" as opposed to "independent auditors said" and 2)"OK" as opposed to compliant. He goes on to say the following: "During WWII, a strategy was employed by some that was called "The Big Lie." They repeated inaccurate or incorrect information frequently, characterizing it as accurate and correct. Most people don't check, they just accept what they see and hear, so after a while, there was a ring of truth to statements that were not true. However, since "everyone" says them, they must be true." So, my question to you Mr. Belasco would be, "Am I to believe you? Or are you participating in the Y2K Big Lie?" From your article, "Some will not have the goods or services available from their downstream dependencies." Does this mean that coal powered plants could potentially have a problem getting fuel? Which in turn might put a strain on the nukes to fill the gap? Which in turn might put a strain on the grid? Comments like, "the lights will be on," in spite of the numbers offered to us by the electric companies and the NERC report, lead me to consider there is a deliberate disinformation campaign being conducted. It's not just one industry, it's the systemic nature of all of these systems.

The Lights WILL Be On

-- Other Lisa (LisaWard2@aol.com), January 29, 1999

Answers

When you read Belasco's article, make sure you look at his bio. What a wanker. I would personally believe NERC data before I believed a thing Belasco wrote, and the NERC data is most assuredly Y2K comatose-inducing horse manure.

Westergaard has gone so far downhill in the past 6 months that it's hardly worthy of the bookmark anymore.

Let the Y2k disinformation campaign begin!

-- Jelly Bean (jelly@belly.com), January 29, 1999.

Jelly,

Taking your point a step further, let me ask if you listen to the reports of Bonnie Camp. Get her bio then apply your statement to her analysis of the electrical industry. Also that of Paul Milne and Gary North. What you say is true and should be applied across the board.

-- MAP (M@M.com), January 29, 1999.

The difference between Camp, North, Milne, Belasco is that Camp makes no pretentions about her background. Anything you read about the whole y2k thing needs to be balanced against the background, experience, and (perceived) motivation of the author.

-- Jelly Bean (jelly@belly.com), January 29, 1999.

Before anybody else answers MAP's question, first read his postings on the following thread to discover his agenda...

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000Pn2

"Poll of Y2K awareness"

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 29, 1999.

Who is Bonnie Camp? Anyone got a link?

-- Other Lisa (LisaWard2@aol.com), January 29, 1999.

She's kinda like an understudy to Rick Cowles on his euy2k.com forum. Check her out - she's great.

-- Lisa (lisa@work.com), January 29, 1999.

Bonnie Camp may not understand anything about electricity, but boy can she think! She has an analytical ability and skill that, coupled with her apparent determination and patience, make her a voice to be listened to and "mined" for all the gems her postings contain.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), January 29, 1999.

bonniec is Rick Cowles alter ego on his euy2k forum. She made a beautiful analysis of the NERC report's figures to show how bogus they were. I would ask her out if I weren't already married sight unseen.

Subscribe to Cowles discussion forum and you get about ten emails a day on the powergrid. Half of it you won't understand until bonniec comes along and explains it in layman's terms. Right now there are some optimists in the industry taking rick and bonnie on. Good Stuff.

b

-- bb (b@b.b), January 29, 1999.

Jellybean is right. The stuff coming off of the Westergaard site is more than half crap. I suspect it is due to Moynihan's backpeddling, and his close ties to Westergaard.

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), January 29, 1999.

Um...lest any hardliners get to quoting Rick Cowles too hard in their rebuttal of any glimmer of hope for the power grid....here's a direct quote from the Cowles interview posted on the CBN site...

"You're going to see isolated dark spots here and there. You're going to see brown spots here and there. But you're going to see more light spots than brown or black spots." -- Seqor Rick Cowles

http://www.cbn.org/y2k/cowles .htm

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), February 05, 1999.